Poem: Riding Lessons

The boy pulls on each boot as his father watcheshe grabs his helmet by the straplifts it from the dirt where he dropped ittrudges through the barn’s shadowed maw where the ponies stand in cross-tiesand a thousand girls in jodhpurs adore them.

I prompt him at every step of the ritual tacking-up as heswipes at the pony’s legs with a brushbroods at its refusal to lift a hoof for the pickforgets where its bridle, saddle, and the stained pad are storedalthough he has been taking lessons all summer.

Here’s what he thinks about ridingand his father’s nostalgia for horses —He drops the saddle on the pony’s backwith the pommel facing backward.